Inworldz building and writing

Enchanted Isles

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Changes are coming to Dunvalos Reach in Inworldz. Specifically, Dunvalos Reach is going bye-bye. We’re moving everything over to my Kaedara set of sims.

I find that I’m no longer able to maintain so much space in Inworldz, as my work schedule has grown. And with Sandie gone, the original thoughts I had with Dunvalos Reach are no longer attainable. Perhaps it is best to move on, so to speak.

I’m starting a new campaign I’m calling “Take Me To Kaedara” for my upcoming fantasy series. As part of this, the Kaedara sims will also feature a notecard style adventure to take visitors on a journey through my books.

The stores are set to open on Elvenglades sim on December 15th. In fact, the Elvenglades and the Lost Forest of Hudan sims are open to the public now. On the Hudan sim, the breedables sales level is above and on the ground is a lighter selection of landscaping and gazebos. A smaller version of the Silverwood memorial for Sandie is here too and I’ll have book stations in it to introduce people to her books.

Either on the 15th or sometime shortly thereafter I should be able to open the Enchanted Isles sim to the public also. Not sure of what sales will be on that one yet, as it’s a representation of the Isles from my books where the Myads live.

For the moment, Moor-Knight is closed and we plan on keeping it closed to the public, as we have our private building and living areas there. Going to see how this first month or two goes and then consider renting a 2X2 section to move us and be able to open Moor-Knight up. IF the time and expenses support such a thing.

During November, I was limited by an internet issue that the techs have been out numerous times to help us through, overloaded in other duties, and I had a little health episode to deal with. This is why my play blogging and social sites have been so quiet. Next week my husband is tying up the internet for some intense video conferencing on two of our computers, so I’ll be on limited internet time until after that’s done.

Wish I could post a definite schedule on the “Take Me To Kaedara” journey. This month, I’m working on preparing two books for Sandie and Lora. Then I hope we can begin work in earnest on my books in January. My artist had some surgeries to get through, and my editor had some issues.

Praying both are on the mend and ready to hustle after the holidays.

For the move to Kaedara, we’re keeping the stores we started. Mystic Serenia is building a new cool, large Egyptian store building for hers. My store buildings will be available for purchase. I’m not sure about hers.

I’ve decided to offer prepared room sets instead of the nearly 2000 throw pillows. I’ll still have throw pillows, just not as many and most will be offered in packs rather than individually.

There’s not a huge change in what we offer for breedables, except for our latest lineup of Relay For Life traited unicorns. We’re still breeding oyos only.

I’ll keep the horse breeding guide I set up and will expand on it. I may even make a notecard style of guide for inworldz viewing.

Not sure what to do about the recent change to oyo breedable groups. I’m sorry. I love the people, but do feel this was an unbelievably stupid move on their part.

They’ve had to secure against troublemakers and hackers lately. As part of the response they’ve overreacted and now switched both the help group and the chat group so that not everyone can join.

This is a terrible business move for those coming in to the breedables. It’s creating a pain in the butt situation for not only us who have no powers at all to try to help newbies, but also their CSRs have to listen to it.

I didn’t want a Kaedara Breedables group. But it seems that if they don’t realize how this is such a big mistake and correct it, that I may be forced into starting my own group.

Not that I can help them when there’s issues they need the CSRs in help group for. But maybe some of the elder breeders would join it too and contact a CSR for someone when needed.

Another pain in the butt process to go through, but I’ll do it if I must to make things easier for my own customers.

A business 101 rule: don’t make your customers work to get your product or to maintain your product. Surefire way to lose customers and turn away new ones.

When I’m deep into the building mode, I get like I do when I’m writing. Into the zone and I don’t notice anything around me.

My poor dog. She cannot get my attention. I’ve come out of the zone to find myself surrounded by every dog toy in the house, as she tried to get my attention. Or, a few times, with a shredded kleenex beside me because she knows that is a big no-no and uses it to get my attention. By the time I come out of it, she’s given up and is curled up asleep in her bed.

This is why I write when others are gone or asleep in the house…same with heavy building.

My 2X2’s won’t be open to the public until probably spring when I’m done with them. And I really zone out on them, for not only am I building, but I’m developing a lot about my book series that I haven’t thought of doing yet. A lot of back story, a lot of culture, a lot of hows and whys come to light with the building.

The first one I’ve been developing is Enchanted Isles, home of my Myads. Been a real challenge. I haven’t created a lot of their culture or their backstory, just the bits and pieces I’ve needed to write their parts so far.

The biggest hurdle for me to get over was to get used to the idea that this is a representation of their areas, not the actual areas. I’d need all four sims for this one territory to make it more “actual”. Then, once I got used to that, I had to create with a great emphasis on combining stone with trees. That’s new territory for me.

It’s been fun. I’ve learned a lot about them so far just by building their territory. I’m getting a lot of cool stuff to put into my upcoming series guide. And I’m beginning to think there may be a book for a Myad character or two in my companion series to go with the full novels.

(Nothing out yet. Probably going to be a major bulk release next year of much of it. A lot is written, and the first book actually published awhile back and will be republished with a makeover. Sadly, both my cover artist and editor have been seriously ill this year and I missed having a fall release. Plus my own family mess and Sandie’s death slowed things down a bit. They’re both better and getting into work a little again.)

Work In Progress…main building for the Myad territory.

I haven’t started the products for Dee’s Designs yet. There are some textures I’m going to look over from a creator that allows multi-grid use of hers. Some ideas have been coming my way for ribbon themed home decor objects. Think I’m going to start playing with those.

For the outside, I wanted to spruce up the yard where I sat the Pink Ribbon eye horses. So I designed a Breast Cancer corral set to match the building. Really makes the place look nice.

I hope the pictures are clear enough. The corral does get fog drifting through it from Mystic’s Halloween haunted house and graveyard display next door. She’s still working on it.

Pink Corral set up. Was lucky to find a pink wood set that didn’t look too gaudy.

The back of the open stalls connected to the corral. I used butterflies as accent. Seems a recurring theme for Dee’s Designs.

My relaxation area at home.

We moved our home level from Dunvalos Reach to one of the 2X2’s. Right across from the level where I keep forty horses. I especially enjoy being able to smoothly fly back and forth between the two sims up there. Still amazes me after suffering with SL’s crossings for so many years.

Went out today and met this old man in a long waiting line at the department store. Total stranger who just had to tell us everything about his recent ingrown toenail surgery. For a whole stinking 15 minutes worth. Man! When I got out of there all I could think was, “And this is why I prefer to hang out with people in virtual worlds.” LOL

This month marks the one year anniversary for my mother being diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Not sure what I’ll do for the fall time yet, but I do need to work on Dee’s Designs. It’s named after my mother and intended to promote breast cancer awareness. Yet, I’ve been so preoccupied I really only just have some products in it and not much guidance. I shall need to work on that.

Chloe has the oyos Breast Cancer horse and has bred the crap out of it. LOL She’s got a lot of eyes. And a few match my current oyos breeding program well, so thought adding one in for my mom’s store would be a good idea. If my pegasus pair sells I may have to choose between more starters or getting another to go with it.

The new mascot for the breast cancer awareness store, featuring the pink ribbon eyes. I named her Dee after my mom.

I’ve started my 2X2 and today’s plans away from home were cancelled. I’m so thrilled! I get to play!

The first sim for the Kaedara region to be worked on is Enchanted Isles.

In my series, the continent name is Kaedara. Supposed to be South Kaedara but I made a change recently. Books far in the future will deal with the continent to the north of this one and if I name it South Kaedara that sort of limits me to naming the other one North Kaedara. I may not want to, so just going with Kaedara leaves my options open.

The Enchanted Isles is an island country on the southern side of the continent. This is where a civilization I created called Myads live. They’re descended from Dryads. Very human like, yet their skin and hair reflects their special nature. Myads are either Tree Servers or Stone Servers. The island designs will reflect this, of course. Lots of rock and lots of trees.

The ground level will not use a lot of prims, so Enchanted Isles is the sim which also houses the very high up oyos horses sky box. I’ve been stressing Dunvalos Reach out a bit in scripts, if not prims, so I moved most of the breeding age horses that aren’t for sale to Enchanted Isles.

Tests were interesting. Flying around on the skybox I got 90 fps. Ping sim kind of higher than I like, but didn’t seem like something I could control at the time and just have to deal with it. When I set the textures up for the skybox, fps lowered to about 70-80. I contribute that to having to use larger images there. Then when I stood and walked on the skybox it lowered further to 20-25 fps.

Not surprising. One of the biggest lag factors we faced in SL was walking on prims, due to how the computer communicates. Especially mega prims. Most lag conscious builders will use all 10X10s to make the floors. My skybox is with 128X128 sections. At some point I may recreate it out of 10X10s and see what the difference is.

For now I’ve tried one thing with my oyos horses. I rezed 10X10 platforms for them that don’t touch the main floor and have them on those. Food and the servers too. Not sure if that makes a difference but I’m hoping it does help. I also decided not to decor the skybox to keep things down as much as possible and keep both horses and sim as healthy as I can.

At ground level, my fps seems to bounce from 15-30 fps. Not great, considering it’s empty, but this is on my pc that needs replacing. Cool VL viewer. Will test with Firestorm’s new update when I can too. And with the ultra gamer laptop. Which may be interesting, as hubby just updated it to windows 10. I love the Inworldz viewer but gave up on it. Got tired of issues and crashing.

The results of first terraforming with the Enchanted Isles sim.

With the ground level terraforming, I’ve noticed one big thing. Terraforming in Inworldz on private island versus terraforming in Second Life on private island is a whole lot more fun. It’s a lot easier and smoother to get the results you’re going for.

Not sure if the textures will stay as I have them though. I have dolphins in the cove, so I went with two layers of sand and then two layers of grass. May experiment with different ones until I get the look I want.

I’ll try to keep up with the updates as I can this week. We have two family reunions to prepare for and be gone for over next weekend, so not positive how much I can get done this week. Besides going nuts on the 8 hour drive because I would ratherbe building Inworldz. 🙂